Do you really know?

Whether it’s making a wish over a birthday cake, waiting for lottery results, or opening an email following a job interview, it's pretty common to cross your fingers. It’s a way of communicating that we’re hoping luck swings in our favor and our wishes come true. Often, you don’t even need to physically cross your fingers; simply saying "Fingers crossed” is enough to get the message across. But th...

Currently there are many people that just feel they cannot get onto the property ladder, but is buying your own home really the best way to invest your money? Well, there are many benefits to owning your home, such as the stability and peace of mind that it can bring you. You can’t be evicted by a landlord, you can decorate and furnish it as you want, and you can enjoy the social and psycholo...

"May all your delulu come trululu, because being delulu is the solulu." The clip you just listened to comes from American influencer Bianca Bernardo on Tiktok, and it’s had over 2/3 million views at the time of recording. If you’re wondering what the heck those crazy words mean, it’s best summed up as saying: “may all your fantasies turn into reality”.  Indeed, the delulu hashtag has rac...

Did you know that each of us has a truly unique body odour, which is influenced by a mix of genetic, hormonal, age-related, environmental, and lifestyle factor? And your diet plays a role in shaping your natural scent. Some foods have their own noticeably strong odours, like garlic or onions for example, and can in turn cause us to sweat more. The same goes for spices and chili, which makes sense...

When someone tells you not to do something it often becomes even more tempting, which is why, as a teenager, when your parents forbade you from seeing a certain boyfriend or girlfriend you felt even more passionate about them. Now psychologist have looked into what causes this so-called  ‘Romeo and Juliet effect’. Psychologists at the University of Colorado chose the name of Shakespeare's pla...

You've got a fever, a sore throat, and you've felt awful for the last couple of days. You see your GP, only to leave without a prescription. It's frustrating. Most of us have been there, wondering: Why won't they just give me antibiotics? The answer is simple, and it's one of the biggest public health challenges of our time. But aren't antibiotics supposed to treat infections? So what can we do? I...

The world of cinema is full of films and sagas which leave their mark on a generation, sometimes becoming cult films. And another phenomenon is becoming more and more common: that of the spin off. Spin-off films involve the creation of a new work based on the original, focusing on the story of a secondary character. There are a number of reasons why directors and screenwriters have chosen to...

We spend a good deal of our time at work, 35 hours a week or more. It's an integral part of our lives, so if you can it's always best to surround yourself with good colleagues. They make work not only more enjoyable but stimulating.  Their support and collaboration also helps to create a positive environment where teamwork leads to tackling problems and finding solutions. However, when we don...

The number of moles we have on our bodies largely depends on sun exposure. According to the Mayo Clinic, “Most people have 10 to 45 moles that appear during childhood and the teenage years.” Moles can vary in thickness, shape, colour, and they sometimes even have hair. They can pop up between your toes, on your scalp, on your earlobes or under your nails-anywhere really. Rest assured, most of the...

Numerous archaeological findings have suggested that dogs were the first animals to be domesticated by humans over 20,000 years ago. So it’s little surprise that in this day and age, 29% of UK adults own a dog. That’s according to 2023 data from vet charity PDSA.  If you have a dog, you may have been told that you share physical characteristics with it, a sort of family resemblance if you lik...

As of March 2024, the UK inflation rate stood at 3.2%, well below the record levels that had been seen a year prior. But still the cost of living crisis is biting and grocery shopping is one of the areas in which prices rose the most across 2022 and 2023. Thinking of ways to save on groceries has become really important and we’ve got a special tip for all of you listening today. The 6-1 method com...

A lot of people think that morning erections are triggered by erotic dreams, or a need to pee, but in fact they're a physiological reflex linked to sleep. That’s right - they’re not dependent on sexual arousal at all. And in a somewhat similar way, women actually also experience increased blood flow to the clitoris during the night. Now, the scientific term for a nighttime erection is nocturn...

All personal development coaches emphasise the importance of setting goals, even ones that may seem out of reach at first. Doing so not only boosts motivation but also enables gradual achievement.  Nowadays a lot of people find this kind of approach almost second nature, but others struggle with it. A fear of failure, workplace anxiety, and a lack of self-confidence can make ambition seem una...

Surely nothing affects taste other than what you actually put in your mouth, right?! Well actually no, that’s not true - at least according to a study published in December 2022 in Food Quality and Preference. The researchers behind that found that the colour of our dishware might influence our perception of taste. And it’s not the first study of its kind; I’m going to tell you about other similar...

Finding love isn’t always easy and sometimes the search takes people abroad. That's certainly the case for “passport bros”, who we're going to talk about today. The term generally refers to men, particularly from North America and Europe, who travel abroad in search of relationships. Countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia are frequently promoted in their online communities. An...

A white coating on the tongue can occur when your health is compromised, like during a cold or fever. Lifestyle factors such as smoking, excessive alcohol, and too much sugar, coffee, tea, or dairy can also contribute to this by disrupting the balance of your oral microbiota or affecting saliva production. In most cases, it’s an accumulation of bacteria and dead cells, a condition known as saburra...

Popular fantasy might suggest that we need to have hours of sex in order to be satisfied, but is that actually true? A study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine in 2005 looked into intravaginal ejaculation latency time among 500 heterosexual couples from five different countries. Now intravaginal ejaculation latency time might sound like a complicated term, but basically it just means how...

The idea might seem inconceivable to some, but these days more and more people are choosing to be in LAT relationships. The LAT part of the term stands for Living Alone Together, which means that LAT couples are in a committed romantic relationship, but each person maintains their own private life and space. Back in 2011, a research team began a multi-method study looking into how prominent LAT co...

We’ve all heard about the importance of getting a balanced diet, but some people choose to ignore that advice completely, and those following the carnivore diet are a prime example. As you may have guessed from its name, the carnivore diet involves eating almost exclusively meat, sometimes raw, sometimes cooked, and might also include fish. Healthline.com says that “other animal foods like eggs an...

Picture the scene: a woman is sitting in a bar, when a man comes up to try to talk to her. She finds him attractive, but acts disinterested and more or less ignores him, in order to not seem desperate. The man gives up and leaves the woman alone, but she then feels dissatisfied that he hasn’t persisted. It might seem like a counterintuitive approach, but according to American psychotherapist Ellno...

In late April 2024, police chiefs from the UK’s National Crime Agency and 32 European countries issued a statement expressing their concerns about the use of end-to-end encryption by instant messaging services like WhatsApp. The statement recognised that E2E encryption protects users’ personal data, but emphasised that it also prevents authorities from identifying suspicious or illegal activities....

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, our mouths host no fewer than 700 species of microbes, including “germs like bacteria, fungus and more”. Some are helpful in producing vitamins, or aiding in digestion, for example, but others can cause problems like bad breath. Because many of these microbes live on the tongue, recent years have seen increased use of oral hygiene devi...

It’s common knowledge that having plants in your home is incredibly beneficial. They reduce carbon dioxide levels, purify air, reduce dust, and can even dampen noise. Not to mention, how pleasant and soothing they are to look at. But alas, not everyone is blessed with a gardener’s green thumb! Do you feel like your indoor plants just can’t survive more than a few months, despite your best efforts...

According to data from Finder.com, the average Brit now spends 4 hours and 14 minutes using their smartphone each day. It’s hardly surprising; smartphone use has grown consistently over the last 15 years, to the extent that the devices have become almost like an extension of our arms and hands.  Given we tend to hold our phones out in front of us when using them, our heads bow down in quite a...

Imagine being drunk, without having drunk a single drop of alcohol, it seems completely implausible, and yet for some is a reality. South-West media shared the story of a motorist who appeared in court in Bruges in 2022 after being found to have too much alcohol in his blood twice in the same year. The man, in his forties, was eventually acquitted, proving that the tests were not the result of a n...